Funny story which I will give in English because it is relevant and you speak English better than I do Dutch or Afrikaans . My friend and I had a South African bus driver once so my friend asked if he was a Boer. He said, "No. I'm a truck driver."

Funny story which I will give in English because it is relevant and you speak English better than I do Dutch or Afrikaans . My friend and I had a South African bus driver once so my friend asked if he was a Boer. He said, "No. I'm a truck driver."

Funny story which I will give in English because it is relevant and you speak English better than I do Dutch or Afrikaans . My friend and I had a South African bus driver once so my friend asked if he was a Boer. He said, "No. I'm a truck driver."

HAHAHA!

That joke only the Dutch or the Boeren would understand

Maar waarom leer je eigenlijk Afrikaans?

No - makes perfect sense to me too (I hope). He's saying he's not a farmer. I'm not at all fluent, but I'm familiar with Plattdeutsch (it was my grandfather's only language until secondary school) and it seems to help me understand a fair bit of both Dutch and Afrikaans - though the spellings are odd. There's no standard orthography for Platt but what would be Bauer in Hochdeutsch is more like Bur in Platt, which sounds very similar to Boer. (When I say Plattdeutsch I'm referring to the dialect spoken in the region close to Bremen - other dialects are available)

James

« Last Edit: October 04, 2012, 10:52:07 AM by jmbejdl »

Logged

We owe greater gratitude to those who humble us, wrong us, and douse us with venom, than to those who nurse us with honour and sweet words, or feed us with tasty food and confections, for bile is the best medicine for our soul. - Elder Paisios of Mount Athos

Funny story which I will give in English because it is relevant and you speak English better than I do Dutch or Afrikaans . My friend and I had a South African bus driver once so my friend asked if he was a Boer. He said, "No. I'm a truck driver."

HAHAHA!

That joke only the Dutch or the Boeren would understand

Maar waarom leer je eigenlijk Afrikaans?

No - makes perfect sense to me too (I hope). He's saying he's not a farmer. I'm not at all fluent, but I'm familiar with Plattdeutsch (it was my grandfather's only language until secondary school) and it seems to help me understand a fair bit of both Dutch and Afrikaans - though the spellings are odd. There's no standard orthography for Platt but what would be Bauer in Hochdeutsch is more like Bur in Platt, which sounds very similar to Boer. (When I say Plattdeutsch I'm referring to the dialect spoken in the region close to Bremen - other dialects are available)

Funny story which I will give in English because it is relevant and you speak English better than I do Dutch or Afrikaans . My friend and I had a South African bus driver once so my friend asked if he was a Boer. He said, "No. I'm a truck driver."

HAHAHA!

That joke only the Dutch or the Boeren would understand

Maar waarom leer je eigenlijk Afrikaans?

No - makes perfect sense to me too (I hope). He's saying he's not a farmer. I'm not at all fluent, but I'm familiar with Plattdeutsch (it was my grandfather's only language until secondary school) and it seems to help me understand a fair bit of both Dutch and Afrikaans - though the spellings are odd. There's no standard orthography for Platt but what would be Bauer in Hochdeutsch is more like Bur in Platt, which sounds very similar to Boer. (When I say Plattdeutsch I'm referring to the dialect spoken in the region close to Bremen - other dialects are available)

Thanks. No I, strangely, have never even thought to look for a Platt version of Wikipedia. I grew up hearing bits it (my mother cursing under her breath to a large degree) but never really was all that interested until the last few years. I'd love to be fluent but unfortunately unless I move the family back there, I don't think I ever will be.

James

« Last Edit: October 04, 2012, 11:22:42 AM by jmbejdl »

Logged

We owe greater gratitude to those who humble us, wrong us, and douse us with venom, than to those who nurse us with honour and sweet words, or feed us with tasty food and confections, for bile is the best medicine for our soul. - Elder Paisios of Mount Athos

Funny story which I will give in English because it is relevant and you speak English better than I do Dutch or Afrikaans . My friend and I had a South African bus driver once so my friend asked if he was a Boer. He said, "No. I'm a truck driver."

HAHAHA!

That joke only the Dutch or the Boeren would understand

Maar waarom leer je eigenlijk Afrikaans?

No - makes perfect sense to me too (I hope). He's saying he's not a farmer. I'm not at all fluent, but I'm familiar with Plattdeutsch (it was my grandfather's only language until secondary school) and it seems to help me understand a fair bit of both Dutch and Afrikaans - though the spellings are odd. There's no standard orthography for Platt but what would be Bauer in Hochdeutsch is more like Bur in Platt, which sounds very similar to Boer. (When I say Plattdeutsch I'm referring to the dialect spoken in the region close to Bremen - other dialects are available)

Thanks. No I, strangely, have never even thought to look for a Platt version of Wikipedia. I grew up hearing bits it (my mother cursing under her breath to a large degree) but never really was all that interested until the last few years. I'd love to be fluent but unfortunately unless I move the family back there, I don't think I ever will be.

James

Pretty much outside of Bavarian, Austria, and of course Switzerland real dialect use is dead.

Funny story which I will give in English because it is relevant and you speak English better than I do Dutch or Afrikaans . My friend and I had a South African bus driver once so my friend asked if he was a Boer. He said, "No. I'm a truck driver."

Funny story which I will give in English because it is relevant and you speak English better than I do Dutch or Afrikaans . My friend and I had a South African bus driver once so my friend asked if he was a Boer. He said, "No. I'm a truck driver."

HAHAHA!

That joke only the Dutch or the Boeren would understand

Maar waarom leer je eigenlijk Afrikaans?

No - makes perfect sense to me too (I hope). He's saying he's not a farmer. I'm not at all fluent, but I'm familiar with Plattdeutsch (it was my grandfather's only language until secondary school) and it seems to help me understand a fair bit of both Dutch and Afrikaans - though the spellings are odd. There's no standard orthography for Platt but what would be Bauer in Hochdeutsch is more like Bur in Platt, which sounds very similar to Boer. (When I say Plattdeutsch I'm referring to the dialect spoken in the region close to Bremen - other dialects are available)

Thanks. No I, strangely, have never even thought to look for a Platt version of Wikipedia. I grew up hearing bits it (my mother cursing under her breath to a large degree) but never really was all that interested until the last few years. I'd love to be fluent but unfortunately unless I move the family back there, I don't think I ever will be.

James

Pretty much outside of Bavarian, Austria, and of course Switzerland real dialect use is dead.

The Standard language has taken over for the most part.

No, Platt is alive and well in my ancestral home - they even have written Platt adverts in the local magazine, alongside Hochdeutsch of course. Of course, it's a tiny town in the sticks about halfway between Bremen and Hannover, so it's probably pretty much a rural holdout, though having said that Radio Bremen definitely still has programmes in Platt as well. My understanding is that there's a reasonably big movement to revive the language in Niedersachsen, Bremen and Hamburg as well.

James

Logged

We owe greater gratitude to those who humble us, wrong us, and douse us with venom, than to those who nurse us with honour and sweet words, or feed us with tasty food and confections, for bile is the best medicine for our soul. - Elder Paisios of Mount Athos

Funny story which I will give in English because it is relevant and you speak English better than I do Dutch or Afrikaans . My friend and I had a South African bus driver once so my friend asked if he was a Boer. He said, "No. I'm a truck driver."

HAHAHA!

That joke only the Dutch or the Boeren would understand

Maar waarom leer je eigenlijk Afrikaans?

No - makes perfect sense to me too (I hope). He's saying he's not a farmer. I'm not at all fluent, but I'm familiar with Plattdeutsch (it was my grandfather's only language until secondary school) and it seems to help me understand a fair bit of both Dutch and Afrikaans - though the spellings are odd. There's no standard orthography for Platt but what would be Bauer in Hochdeutsch is more like Bur in Platt, which sounds very similar to Boer. (When I say Plattdeutsch I'm referring to the dialect spoken in the region close to Bremen - other dialects are available)

Thanks. No I, strangely, have never even thought to look for a Platt version of Wikipedia. I grew up hearing bits it (my mother cursing under her breath to a large degree) but never really was all that interested until the last few years. I'd love to be fluent but unfortunately unless I move the family back there, I don't think I ever will be.

James

Pretty much outside of Bavarian, Austria, and of course Switzerland real dialect use is dead.

The Standard language has taken over for the most part.

No, Platt is alive and well in my ancestral home - they even have written Platt adverts in the local magazine, alongside Hochdeutsch of course. Of course, it's a tiny town in the sticks about halfway between Bremen and Hannover, so it's probably pretty much a rural holdout, though having said that Radio Bremen definitely still has programmes in Platt as well. My understanding is that there's a reasonably big movement to revive the language in Niedersachsen, Bremen and Hamburg as well.

James

My greatgrandmother was a Saxon and spoke Plattdeutsch as well as real-deutsch. None of the kids spoke it, but when she got really mad she'd scream at them in Plattdeutsch. My grandma said that they would all laugh at her for talking funny which would throw her into bigger fits of rage.

One time I read something in Dutch to my grandma and she said it sounded like Plattdeutsch to her. Are they related somehow? It looks like the Afrikaans word for Plattdeutsch is Nederduits.

My greatgrandmother was a Saxon and spoke Plattdeutsch as well as real-deutsch. None of the kids spoke it, but when she got really mad she'd scream at them in Plattdeutsch. My grandma said that they would all laugh at her for talking funny which would throw her into bigger fits of rage.

One time I read something in Dutch to my grandma and she said it sounded like Plattdeutsch to her. Are they related somehow? It looks like the Afrikaans word for Plattdeutsch is Nederduits.

There's a sort of continuum. Low German dialects experienced either very few or none of the sound changes of the High German consonant shift, and so, they preserve, like Dutch, unshifted consonants. For example, many Low German dialects will use ik instead of ich, Appel instead of Apfel, geven instead of geben, schip instead of schiff, etc. Low German dialects can be rather easily mutually intelligible with Dutch, and difficult to understand for speakers of Standard German (that is probably why your grandmother said the Dutch you were reading sounded like Plattdeutsch).

« Last Edit: March 14, 2013, 01:31:24 PM by Cavaradossi »

Logged

Be comforted, and have faith, O Israel, for your God is infinitely simple and one, composed of no parts.